The Centre has issued fresh notification to the organisations registered under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act to submit their statutory annual returns mandated under the regulation act on time.
According to it, if any NGO violates the norm by not submitting its returns by December 31 every year, a penalty ranging from two to five per cent of the total foreign contribution received by it during the year will be imposed by the government.
And the Centre’s move follows last year’s crackdown against 4,138 NGOs for violating the FCRA provisions.
Actually, the Centre got moving on the issue after the show cause notices issued by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to over 4,000 NGOs returned undelivered as the ‘fly-by-night non-governmental organisations’ could not be tracked down to their listed address. And 24 cases have been referred to the CBI for further investigation.
The MHA notification of April 29 said a penalty of two per cent of the amount received during the financial year or Rs 10,000, whichever is higher, will be imposed.
“A penalty of three per cent or Rs 20,000, whichever is higher, after 91 days up to 180 days. Penalty of five per cent or Rs 50,000, whichever is higher, and Rs 500 per day after 180 days will be imposed on the defaulter NGOs,” it said.
As many as 18,507 NGOs are under the MHA scanner for not submitting the mandatory annual returns. And a majority of these -- 2661 -- are based in Andhra Pradesh.
These NGOs have not filed the annual returns for 2010-2011 followed by 2,317 NGOs in Tamil Nadu 1,771 in Maharashtra, 1,743 in UP, 1,382 in West Bengal, 1337 in Karnataka and 1,135 NGOs in Kerala.
Sources said the registration of these NGOs under the FCRA would be cancelled soon.
“The banks concerned will be asked to furnish the details of the money received by the NGOs. If required, a physical inspection of the defaulter NGOs will be conducted by the government,” they said.